Title: Between The Li(n)esRating: R (for sexual content, language, and discussion of self-harm)Pairing: Patrick/OCPOV: Third person (Patrick centric)Summary: (He's also pretending he's not heading for her apartment. Because he isn't. He might end up there, accidentally, but.)Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is fiction, nothing less, nothing more.A/N: Coda to "So It's Not Hard To Fall (When You Float Like A Cannonball)" from "It's Rare, But It Sometimes Happens". What Patrick was doing while Joe and Holly had a moment in a grocery store. This is the first thing I've managed to write in a couple of weeks, so hopefully it's not too horrible. Inspired by several lines in "Wuthering Heights".

Holly is going out. To get groceries, or something, and Patrick -

Patrick can't do it.

He stutters lines about "recording" and "label meeting" and "so, so sorry, but I have to go" and she smiles, a little sickly, and tells him to do what he needs to do. She'll just take the kids with her when she goes shopping, no big deal.

So he leaves before her, heads for a train station. He rides the metro for a long, long time before he finally gets off. It's her stop, but he's pretending he doesn't know that.

(He's also pretending he's not heading for her apartment. Because he isn't. He might end up there, accidentally, but.)

Well.

And then he's on her building's lawn, in the elevator, knocking at her door. Running his hands through his hair and fooling with his hat and notnot wondering about Holly.

She opens it, and he doesn't think. Doesn't think at all, just surges forward, one hand braced on the frame of her door, about tight enough to form splinters, and presses his lips to hers, as hard as he can. And god, she doesn't fight back, just grabs him by the collar instead, dragging him in and closing the door with her foot as he all but yanks her through to the bedroom.

He almost forgot this, the taste of her lips as he opens them with his, begging, desperate. He almost forgot the feeling of her skin under his fingers, smooth as he digs his nails in under her shirt, gripping tight to his anchor.

She makes so little noise, and she won't look at him. Not now, not when he's bitter and desperate and aching. Not when he needs it, needs it most.

He takes off his clothes, her clothes. She shivers on the bed, skin exposed. She's always cold, and he's not quite cold enough. They lay in silence for a while, and he wonders at her, the things he's replaced in his mind with images of Holly against a wall, lips for biting and eyes for striking. Bitter, sick. Thinking of Joe. Sometimes, when they're fucking (god, they don't make love, not ever. That's not what he is for her. He's just her roofie, her easy forgetfulness, sweet, sweet apathy) she'll look up and seem shocked, blinking at his red-blonde hair, his green-ish eyes. She misplaces herself, sometimes. She forgets that he's not him, he's just.

He's just himself.

But now he has different skin beneath him, fingertips careful as he enters, rocks, trying, trying to be gentle. They're not going slow, per se, so much as he hasn't deteriorated to dragging his nails down her back, yet.

And then he wonders whether or not she's noticed the red lines wandering down beside his spine. He likes to refer to them as his "wedding ring"; after all, they are the only thing really keeping Holly and him together. She brands his back, just like she brands her own skin. He's not stupid. He knows she's hurting herself. Her thighs are covered in self-inflicted red scratches, set perfectly to match the angry lines running from her shoulders, upwards and across to where her spine begins, just at the base of her neck. She's hurting herself, and he knows damn well why.

But now, he's got to focus. This isn't about him and Holly. This is about him, and her.

Anyways, she doesn't notice (or if she does, she keeps absolutely silent).

They fuck.

It ends.

Their situation isn't much for the afterglow. He finishes, she finishes. They pant for half a moment, before she finally, quietly, wraps her hand around his ring finger. "Congratulations," she whispers, and it's the first thing she's said, the whole time. It's surprisingly soft, gentle, not bitter like it perhaps should be. She sounds... Almost. Sorry.

"Yeah," he mutters, "well. She's no you, but."

He pauses, and then, "I guess she'll have to do."

He leaves, nothing more than her perfume to remind him. She barely left a mark. They just fucked, god, and Patrick doesn't know what he expected.

He bites his lip and ignores slightly streaming tears on the train home, and he's not so sure he's ashamed.

Great chapter, or spinoff one-shot. Hot too. And patrick, semi cheating...tsk tsk. Now, I'm probably forgetting, but is he wearing a ring on his finger? Is that why she says congratulations? I can't remember.

As for the ring thing... I was probably a little too vague with that, I fully admit. This takes place after Patrick "proposes" to Holly. While we don't know her answer, the idea here is that either a) word had gotten around that Patrick was engaged to Holly, and therefore Patrick's ex knew about Patrick and Holly, or b) Patrick's ex made the (very safe) assumption that he would propose to Holly, and she would say yes out of desperation. So. Sorry for confusingness, fully my fault :P